Music man controls Google speakers with RFID

Some interesting ways to utilize Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID)! When it comes to getting creative, this is taking RFID to the next level.

Is this useful? I mean, sure, it’s not hard to talk to Google or Alexa and ask for music. They mishear you half the time, but that’s probably your fault. So why would you bother to print and craft dozens of custom RFID tags to control your music? Don’t you have must-see television to be watching?

Well, someone named “hoveeman” on GitHub and YouTube can’t hear the haters because he’s too busy listening to the Trolls soundtrack and Pet Sounds on his custom-built, whole-home, RFID-controlled audio system, which was recently spotted by Android Police.

Hoveeman wired an RFID reader to a Raspberry Pi Zero and hid them under a table. When he swipes one of his album art-adorned RFID tags, the Pi Zero informs his Home Assistant home automation setup, which in turn instructs his group of Chromecast Audio and Google Home devices to play back a specific artist-themed playlist.

Helpfully, hoveeman put everything up on GitHub, including a list of the gear he’s using. And, what’s even better than that: it’s actually a fork of a similar project from a couple of years ago that was designed to control Spotify with RFID. The magic of open source!